The above video shows the moment the reactor containment building blew up. Now that most of us are up and following events through the regular news channels, we’ll unstick this from the top and put it back into the chronological order.

10:01 GMT (06:01am Bridgetown) (Reuters) – Radiation leaked from an unstable Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.

08:28 GMT (04:28am Bridgetown) Japan’s NHK TV showing before and after pictures of the Fukushima-Daiichi plant. It appears to show that the outer structure of one of four buildings at the plant is no longer there.

- Report of Explosion at Nuke Plant. Building “crumbled”

– US Govt warns Americans to evacuate country if possible.

Fuel rods exposed, melting at Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station

Saturday, March 12, 2011 07:55 hrs GMT, 3:55 am Bridgetown

– Experts: Test results indicate Nuclear core probably melting

– Building is containing most of the event, but there are doubts, reports of leaks.

“A nuclear reactor in the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station about 220 kilometers (140 miles) north of Tokyo may be starting to melt down after Japan’s biggest earthquake on record hit the area yesterday.

Fuel rods at the No. 1 reactor at the plant run by Tokyo Electric Power Co. may be melting after radioactive Cesium material left by atomic fission was detected near the site, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency spokesman Yuji Kakizaki said by phone today.”

“The Kyodo news agency says the cooling system has failed at three reactors at a nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture in northeastern Japan and that the coolant water’s temperature has reached boiling level.”

The disastrous 9.1 earthquake that hit Japan on Friday, March 11, 2011 probably killed thousands, but the worst could be yet to come.

I’m following the story on Drudge Report where Matt is pulling together all the wire stories and the above reflects what I see online at a little after 10pm here in Bridgetown, Friday, March 11, 2011. (GMT -4) We won’t try to keep up with the news here at Barbados Free Press, so head over to Matt Drudge for the latest from everywhere.

23 responses to “DISASTER: Japan Nuclear MELTDOWN HAPPENING”

I hope they figure out something.
I’ve heard lots of ideas being thrown about including: Some Nuclear powered subs could pull along side the facility and perhaps pump some of their chilled water into the building, a ship carrying some chilling apparatus could sail next to the facility and do likewise, or the Japanese military cold mobilise.

My friend, while I am happy that I do not live next door to the nuclear plant in Japan, in a way we all do. It’s called The Jetstream, and it means that if a nuclear disaster happens in Japan, a part of it will be coming to Barbados and other far away countries around the world. Those of us who travel know how small this tiny planet is.

As I write this it is 5:34am in Grape Hall and the BBC News feed is indicating that something very bad has happened at the nuclear facility. We can only pray for the millions of people who are in grave danger.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday another reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plants had lost its cooling functions, while at least 15 people at a nearby hospital were found to have been exposed to radioactivity.

The utility supplier notified the government early Sunday morning that the No. 3 reactor at the No. 1 Fukushima plant had lost the ability to cool the reactor core. The reactor is now in the process of releasing radioactive steam, according to top government spokesman Yukio Edano.

It was the sixth reactor overall at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants to undergo cooling failure since the massive earthquake and ensuing tsunami struck Japan on Friday.

The disaster raised fears over radioactive leaks from the plants after cooling systems there were hampered, most seriously at the No. 1 reactor.

An explosion Saturday at the No. 1 plant blew away the roof and the walls of the building housing the No. 1 reactor’s container.

Scare Mongering… maybe somewhat..,. but the threat is VERY real.
The Chernobyl incident left large farming areas in Europe radio active and unable to sell their product.
The radio active material affected large areas of Europe … just check out this link for some of the info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects

PS: This disaster will affect us because we are part of the global community… The last few major natural disasters in Russia, Pakistan, Australia, etc, have affected commodity prices globally… which has a knock on effect on our inflation (just one example).

Many people want to help out, but other than money and being an aid worker, there is another way to help by sending words of support and hope. You can send your message online to school children and emergency workers in Japan via Hope Letters http://hopeletters.wordpress.com/. Hope Letters will translate them into Japanese and deliver them to local organizations for posting/broadcasting (when it is practical and effective to do so). Help give hope!

Tokyo Electric to Build US Nuclear Plants: The No BS Info on Japan’s Disastrous Nuclear Operators

By Greg Palast

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don’t know the law in Japan, so I can’t tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas – by TEPCO and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn’t suffered enough. Here are the facts about TEPCO and the industry you haven’t heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan’s nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called “SQ” or “Seismic Qualification.” That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from al-Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from “failed” to “passed.”

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction, which will work with TEPCO to build the Texas plant. Lord help us.

snip

These safety backup systems are the “EDGs” in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn’t work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn’t save a building because “it was on fire.”

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama’s $4 billion bailout in the making is called the South Texas Project. It’s been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse – Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it’s kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth’s core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don’t know what my son learned in eighth grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So, these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn’t have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency backup diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuclear plant, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They’d been tested. The tests were faked; the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, “Snap, Crackle and Pop.”